Mine canary, State Coal Mine, Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia. The mine canary's job was entirely sacrificial. It was there purely to let the miners know if the air in the mine was getting too poisonous. If it fell of its perch and died then the miners knew the air was bad and they had to get out quick! So the canary did it's job by dying ...

Sometimes coal mine shafts go for kilometres underground. I well remember going down the shaft at the Griffin coal mine in Collie in Western Australia. After we had walked for quite a while we decided to wait for the next vehicle to come past and hitch a lift. We still had quite a way to go before we reached the coal face, and then go back again. While we were waiting we turned out torches off. The blackness down there where this is no light at all is intense. The work at the coal face was very interesting ... but that is another story.

Miners' Union poster, State Coal Mine, Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia. Miners' unions played a very significant role in ensuring fair working conditions, safety, and fair pay over many years.

We might decry - with some justification - some of the excesses of some unions, but we should not forget the great good that was done by unions in bringing about fairness and safety in what is a dangerous workplace - as we can see from the story of the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania.

Hard physical work! This was replaced by initially hydraulic powered drills and explosives, and later by giant machines with great whirling heads that grind the coal up and dump it on to a conveyor attached to the back of the machine. These machines work well in relatively soft materials like coal, but not so well in hard rock mines like gold mines.